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The Environmental Protection Agency, under the direction of President Obama, has imposed new air quality standards on the nation’s coal-burning power plants to slash “carbon emissions” from 2005 levels by 30 percent within 16 years.

EPA director Gina McCarthy announced the new rules which mandate that the power sector use “cleaner energy sources” and cut “energy waste to address issues of national health and global climate change. They will take effect next year.

Although we limit pollutants like mercury, sulfur, and arsenic, currently, there are no limits on carbon pollution from power plants, our nation’s largest source,” McCarthy said. “For the sake of our families’ health and our kids’ future, we have a moral obligation to act on climate. When we do, we’ll turn climate risk into business opportunity, we’ll spur innovation and investment, and we’ll build a world-leading clean energy economy.”

This is high-quality hogwash. The EPA has long made up statistics about the future health of the American people if we don’t follow their directions. You need statistics to convince officials that we have to do something right now, but since carbon dioxide is not a factor in smog or lung issues, there are no real facts and the EPA just makes them up out of whole cloth.

President Obama announced that the EPA’s new rules would prevent up to 100,000 asthma attacks and 2,100 heart attacks in just the first year! Obama uses his usual deceptive language according to Professor Ross McKitrick: “Instead of calling it carbon dioxide, we are just going to call it ‘carbon pollution.'” Well, of course, some folks might remember from their high school biology that every time we breathe, we exhale carbon dioxide, and ask embarrassing questions.

The assumption, I believe, is that if they can just shut down the coal plants as Obama has always said he wants, we will go for the administration advancing vast sums of money to his bundlers to finance new natural gas plants and creating more wind farms and solar arrays. These regulations will make no difference whatsoever to the climate, nor to the amount of CO² in the atmosphere, nor to asthmatics, nor to folks with bad hearts. There are NO benefits whatsoever.

On the other hand, continued colder winters and rapidly rising electricity costs may mean energy poverty for many. The Chamber of Commerce releases a report that such a regulation will decrease a family’s disposable income by $3,400 a year and increase their electricity bills by $200. The report also estimates a loss of 224,000 jobs each year between 2014 and 2030.

Obama predicts that higher electricity bills will shrink as these standards spur investment in energy efficiency(?), cutting waste(?), and ultimately we’re going to be saving money for homes and businesses. Uh huh. In Britain, colder winters and higher electricity prices meant “energy poverty” for those who could not afford to heat their homes. Old folks died from the cold, some bought cheap books at jumble sales to burn to heat their homes. Because of their unfortunate climate laws, the British have been forced to import wood pellets from North Carolina forests to fuel their power plants.

Now, I promise you, you will hear from critics who say the same thing they always say, that these guidelines will kill jobs or crush the economy,” Obama said. “What we’ve seen every time, is that these claims are debunked when you actually give workers and businesses the tools and the incentive they need to innovate. When Americans are called on to innovate, that’s what we do — whether it’s making more fuel-efficient cars or more fuel-efficient appliances, or making sure that we are putting in place the kinds of equipment that prevents harm to the ozone layer and eliminates acid rain.

Obama’s energy schemes were a great way to transfer taxpayer money to his cronies. Interesting how many of them have become fabulously wealthy investing in energy projects. You do remember all the bankrupt companies like Solyndra.

McCarthy said:

Even the largest sectors of our economy buckle under the pressures of a changing climate and when they give way, so do businesses that support them, and local economics that depend on them,” McCarthy said. “As our seas rise, so do insurance premiums, property taxes, and food prices. If we do nothing, in our grandkids’ lifetimes, temperatures could rise 10 degrees and seas could rise four feet.

This is not just about disappearing polar bears or melting ice caps,” she said. “This is about protecting our health and our homes. This is about protecting local economies and jobs.

Is there no one in this whole administration who can actually tell the truth? Even the EPA inspector general says the agency “may be relying on false data.” Surely not!